42 Poachers and Poaching. 



with bushes and with tall water plants in the 

 vicinity are generally chosen. From this the 

 young, when three or four weeks old, betake 

 themselves to the water. If captured now they 

 may easily be domesticated. One of our friends 

 has to-day a young otter, which he leads about 

 in a leash. At Bassenthwaite a man and 

 his son trained a pair of otters to fish in the 

 lake. They would return when called upon, or 

 follow their master home when the fishing was 

 over. The males in spring fight desperately, 

 and once, when hidden, we witnessed a fight 

 which lasted an hour, and so engrossed did 

 the combatants become that we approached 

 and, taking the part of the lesser, shot its 

 aggressor. 



And now a word as to the food of the otter. 

 That it destroys fish we are not about to deny. 

 But this liking for fish has become such a stereo- 

 typed fact (?) in natural history that it is glibly 

 repeated, parrot-like, and so continues until most 

 readers have come to accept it. The otter 

 destroys but few fish, using the word in its 

 popular acceptation. What it destroys are for 

 food, and not out of love of killing. The greater 

 part of its diet consists of fresh-water crayfish, 

 thousands of which it destroys, and it is for 

 these that long journeys are so frequently made. 

 This does not apply to the pairing season ; the 

 wanderings have then another end. Many miles 



